Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 2/28-3/2/2011

2/28/1960:
At Squaw Valley, California, the underdog U.S. Olympic hockey team earns gold with a 9-4 win over Czechoslovakia. Few gave the Americans a chance to medal when the Games began, but the team won its first five contests before facing the Soviet Union, which hadn't lost in the international competition since 1956; in that game, held on the 27th, the United States overcame a 2-1 deficit when Roger and Billy Christian teamed up to score twice for a 3-2 victory. In the gold medal game, the Americans are behind 4-3, then score six unanswered goals in the third period. Billy Christian's son Dave will play on the 1980 U.S. Olympic team that wins the gold medal in the famous "Miracle on Ice."

Birthdays:
Hayden Fry b. 1929
Dean Smith b. 1931
Mario Andretti b. 1940
Bubba Smith b. 1945
Adrian Dantley b. 1956

Packers Fact:
The Packers featured a 4,000-yard passer (Aaron Rodgers) and a 1,200-yard rusher (Ryan Grant) in the same season for the first time in 2008.

3/1/2003:
Built in the mountains of Switzerland, Alinghi wins Race 4 of the America's Cup on the Hauraki Gulf in Auckland, New Zealand. The Swiss team will go on to beat New Zealand in the best-of-nine series, 5-0, the 14th consecutive win for Russell Coutts as an America's Cup skipper. Coutts piloted Team New Zealand to a win in 1995 and successfully defended the Cup in 2000. The Swiss challenge is sponsored by billiionaire entrepreneur Ernesto Bertarelli, who lured Coutts into heading up the Alinghi team.

Birthdays:
Harry Caray b. 1o914
Pete Rozelle b. 1926
Elvin Bethea b. 1946
Mike Rozier b. 1961
Chris Webber b. 1973

Packers Fact:
2007 fourth-round draft choice Allen Barbre won the starting job at right tackle in training camp in 2009.

3/2/1988:
The Fairfield men's basketball team suffers a heartbreaking loss to St. Peter's in the first round of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Entering the contest, Fairfield has a record of 8-19; St. Peter's is 19-8. With two second remaining in tonight's game, Fairfield's Harold Brantley sinks a basket for a 60-59 lead. Believing the game is over, Fairfield coach Mitch Buonaguro and his players race to center court to celebrate. However, St. Peter's had called a timeout before time expired and Buonaguro is assessed a two-shot technical for leaving the bench. St. Peter's sinks both technicals and two more foul shots after a personal on the ensuing in-bounds pass to win, 63-60.

Birthdays:
Mel Ott b. 1909
Hopalong Cassady b. 1934
Ian Woosnam b. 1958
Ben Roethlisberger b. 1982
Reggie Bush b. 1985

Packers Fact:
The Packers' 33-14 rout of the Raiders in Super Bowl II to cap the 1967 season came in Vince Lombardi's final game as Green Bay's coach.

“The laurels of mere willing are dry leaves which have never been green.”

—G.W.F. HEGEL, German philosopher

“Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.”

—THOMAS CARLYLE, 19th-century Scottish writer

“A man’s life is interesting primarily when he has failed—I well know. For it’s a sign that he tried to surpass himself.”

—GEORGES CLEMENCEAU, French statesman

ON OR A DEAF EYE

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If you want a quiet life, you turn a blind ear.

sportscaster Geoffrey Boycott

ON JUST WHAT WERE THOSE ELKS DOING?

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Advance Whip & Novelty Co.
v.
Benevolent Protective Order of Elks

actual court case tried in the U.S.

ON CLEAR, YOU BETCHA!

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Ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy—Oh, it’s got to be about job creation too. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions.

Alaska governor Sarah Palin, when campaigning for vice president

WHAT LURKS IN NEW JERSEY

In the first full-length Between the Numbers novel, bounty hunter Stephanie Plum contends with the Jersey Devil, New Jersey’s scary Pine Barrens, a killer and his boy genius sidekick, a burly bounty hunter named Diesel, and some monkeys. Anyone who’s read any of Janet Evanovich’s Plum novels knows that this is a perfect setup for ribald repartee, sly-and-naughty humor, and no end of wacky, over-the-top just plain fun.

PLUM SPOOKY, by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s Press, 2009)

GIFT IDEA

You can definitely hear those dancing feet when you lay this high-spirited compendium of Broadway’s most popular and influential musicals on your lap and start leafing from show to show. It provides everything you want to know about the 101 shows, as well as bright and incisive opinions and some zesty gossip, too. Every page includes photos, most of which you’ve never seen before. A perfect gift for the Broadway Babies in your life.

BROADWAY MUSICALS: THE 101 GREATEST SHOWS OF ALL TIME, by Ken Bloom and Frank Vlastnik, with a Foreword by Jerry Orbach (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2008)

THE NEW CLASSICS

In Open Ground, Seamus Heaney, one of the most renowned of our contemporary poets, gathered poems from all his books from the beginning to 1996, along with some previously unpublished verse and his Nobel lecture. He created a book that shows the reader his growth and development as a poet of surpassing artistry, intelligence, and feeling. If you believe that poetry enhances life, this is a must read.

OPEN GROUND: SELECTED POEMS, 1966-1996, by Seamus Heaney (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999)